Dear Subscribers
I spend at least an hour each day working on Small Potatoes, right when I wake up in the morning. Right now, I have 34 draft posts in different stages, everything from one that is totally ready to go (for next week—on pleasure and happiness) to ones that are just collections of rough notes on topics I plan to write about, such as whether academics are cowardly, the power of apologies, and what parenting advice is worth taking seriously.
I work on this more than any other single project in my life, and honestly, I love it. I love the thinking; I love the writing, and I love the comments I get from readers.
But I have reached the point that all Substackers eventually reach, where it occurs to me: It would be nice to be paid for this!
Before I go to discuss the paid tier, I’ll say this—nobody needs to subscribe. All my posts will continue to be free. If you don’t want to pay, can’t afford to pay, or don’t think this is worth paying for, that’s totally cool. I am incredibly grateful that you subscribe to this Substack, and you can stop reading this letter now.
So why would anyone pay? Well, there will be extras.
Every two weeks or so (I was going to say bi-weekly, but this seems to mean both every two weeks and twice a week), I’ll have a paid subscriber-only “Office Hours” over Zoom, where we get to talk. This will be a blast.
I have a regular podcast with Robert Wright of Non-Zero, where the 2nd half is paywalled. All of these, past and future, will be freely available to paid subscribers. I have some old paywalled podcasts with David Pizarro of Very Bad Wizards—these will also be freely available to paid subscribers. And when I do more podcasts that are paywalled to any extent (such as Sam Harris’ Making Sense), I’ll arrange for them to be freely available to paid subscribers.
The comment section will be subscriber-only. This means there will be fewer comments but greater opportunities for substantive engagement, and I’m looking forward to being involved in discussions.
For some of my longer and more controversial posts, I will post them ahead of time to paid subscribers for comments and feedback before presenting them to a larger audience. (I’ve taken the idea from Scott Alexander’s Astral Codex Ten.) I admit that it’s odd to ask people to pay for the privilege of helping me out, but I’ll be sure to thank those who advise me, and the process of give-and-take might be enjoyable.
I’m still relatively new to Substack and definitely new to the idea of being paid for it. If you have any suggestions or ideas, please add them to the comments. And regardless of how you want to participate in Small Potatoes, big, big thanks for being part of this.
Paul Bloom
I’m a fairly new subscriber here, and a big part of what I enjoy about my favorite Substacks is the ability to participate in the community of commenters (and usually before I consider going paid). If you cut non-paying subscribers out of the comments, you may be depriving them of the very thing that makes them consider paying at all. I’ll just say that I find it discouraging to really enjoy a piece, want to add to the conversation, and find that I’m blocked out. Something to consider anyway.
1. I'll never understand why you North Americans are so averse to the word 'fortnightly'. When setting up a regular meeting with my PhD supervisor, all those years ago, I said "Lets do it fortnightly" and he said "Don't quote Dickens at me, I haven't read any of it".
2. I'm not really onboard with this brave new world of micro-transactions. I see the logic and, obviously, the appeal for you. Sometimes, though, it feels like death by a thousand cuts. Every substack or podcast subscription I pay for is both easy and hard to justify. Of course I can pay you $10 a month, but can I afford to do that for you and 5 others? or 15 others? I wish there was some way to bundle this stuff. I appreciate your decision to keep the writing free though. Seems like a fair compromise.